Advocates of Animal Rights See Influence Grow in State

By Robert A. Hamilton

Published: November 27, 1988

HUNTERS, farmers, animal researchers and pet shop owners are coming under increasing attack as animal-rights groups keep making gains in membership, financial support and influence.

John J. Dommers, the direct or of the Humane Society's New England regional office in Haddam, said that when he joined the society 17 years ago, ''you used to see 20 people at a rally.'' Now, he said, ''you see 200.''

Animal-rights groups have been int he state for about 30 years, mainly offering services to prevent pet overpopulation. Most of the groups still offer pet adoptions and spay and neuter services, and they protest the use of animals in redeos and circuses. But in recent years, some have evolved into more, vandalizing laboratories and stealing animals and data to stop experiments on animals. If is the more radical action against researchers and hunters that has generated the most attention lately.

''They've been really bad about it, towing loudspeakers on boats to disrupt duck hunting, following hunters into the woods and harassing them,'' said Robert T. Crook, a spokesman for the Connecticut Sportsmen's Alliance.

The recent incident in which a radio-controlled pipe bomb was placed outside the offices of a Norwalk company that experiments on dogs has focused more attention on the animal-rights movement. The police arrested a New York City woman, Fran Stephanie Trutt, in connection with that incident. Miss Trutt has said that no animal-right group helped her.

Julie E. Lewin, Connecticut coordinator for the Fund for Animals in West Hartford, said the major emphasis of many of the groups is simply to stop cruelty to animals, not threaten the safety of individuals. ''There is a growing concern on the part of the public about institutionalized forms of animal cruelty, such as hunting, trapping, factory farming or puppy mills,'' she said.

Two years ago Ms. Lewin was hired as the first full-time state employee of the Fund, and the group had about 5,000 dues-paying members whose only contact was sending in their membership whose only contact was sending in their membership form once a year. Now, there are more than 6,000 members just in the state, and Ms. Lewin is considering monthly meetings. ''There is growing interest in getting involved,'' she said. ''People today want to be doing more than just sending in their contributions.''

While there have been actions that some people term ''animal-rights terrorism,'' the groups are also lobbying for animal protection legislation. And Friends of Animals, which is based in Norwalk, has even announced it will seek to force a proxy vote next spring on whether U.S. Surgical Inc., the Norwalk company that was the target of the attempted bombing two weeks ago, should discontinue its use of dogs to demonstrate its surgical stapler.

Catherine Wrenn, a spokeswoman for U.S. Surgical, acknowledge that the animal group has solicited proxies to vote on the use of animals for research and training. ''We're studying the proposal and haven't made a decision if it should be on the agenda of the annual meeting, but is it is included, we expect it would be rejected overwhelmingly,'' she said.

She said that while there was not evidence linking the recent bomb attempt to either the Friends of Animals or the Fund for Animals, representatives of the groups had often chanted against the company's chairman, Leon C. Hirsch, during the demonstrations. ''After five years of shouting 'Kill Hirsch,' somebody finally tried to,'' Ms. Wrenn said. ''Is that such a surprise?'' Protection and Confrontation There are so many groups, and so many animal protection issues, that some groups have carved out their own niche. The animal-rights groups have evolved into three types: animal protection associations, like the Humane Society; animal wefare groups, like the Fund for Animals, and the more radical animal rights groups, like the Animal Rights Roundation. The groups work together on a number of issues. All three organized demonstrations against horse and oxen pulls at county fairs.

''What we're seeing today is greater coordination of efforts, greater on operation between the groups, that we haven't seen in the past,'' said Mr. Dommers of the Humane Society, whose Connecticut membership has increased 10 to 15 percent a year for the last two years, to 6,522.

''When we started in the early 1950's, we were viewed as a rather radical organization,'' Mr. Dommers said. ''Today, we're definitely viewed as moderate.''

Friends of Animals, a national animal welfare gropu, has had its Connecticut membership increase to 7,000, from 6,000 a year ago, and donations are expected to increase 50 percent his year, said Sarah Seymour, assistant to the president.

Friends concentrates on spay and neuter clinics to prevent pet overpopulation and distributes hunting and trapping sabotage tips to members, Ms. Seymour said, but its participation in other issues, like factory farming, is limited.

One of the more radical organizations is the Animal Rights Front, which uses confrontation and emonstrations to make its aims known. In protests at the Yale Forest in Ashford, members of the group follow hunters into the woods, spraying deer repellant and making noise as they go.

William Manetti, a spokesman for the group, which is based in New Haven, said: ''We're getting alot more calls to give presentations at schools and colleges and community centers. At the least, that means more people are discussing our ideas.''

So many new groups have formed in the last two years, Mr. Manetti said, that an effort is under way to organize them. Two meetings of representatives from the various associations have already taken place, and a third will be scheduled for early 1989.

The advocates face determined opposition. The Connecticut Sportsmen's Alliance, for instance, is backing a bill before in 1989 General Assembly that would make it a crime to harass hunters. the grop hopes the bill will be more successful than the 1987 hunter harassment act, which was declared unconstitutional by a Federal judge.

''Hunting is a state-sanctioned activity,'' Mr. Crook, the group's spokesman, said. ''That the animal-rights people don't like it is immaterial. If the state sanctions it the state should protect it.''

Michael J. Darre, a professor of animal science at the University of Connecticut, recently helped prepare a newsletter that went out to poultry farmers advising them how to deal with animal-rights groups, and organized a meeting open to all farmers on the issue.

Both were in response to incidents in which poultry farmers had birds set free from their cages, and coops were vandalized, he said.

''We advise them to treat intruders like friendly drunks - call the police and have them taken off the property, and avoid any verbal confrontations,'' Mr. Darre said.

''We don't advocate mistreatment of animals,'' Mr. Darre said. ''If an animal if given the best possible care, it will produce the best, which is the best for the farmer.''

But Mr. Darre said some of the chief compalints of animal-rights gropus are not founded in fact. A frequent criticism involves thae caging of egg-laying hens in large-scale operations.

Mr. Darre said economically, it would make no sense to raise the birds in open coops, which takes at tleast twice the floor space. He added that research has shown that birds raised in cages have a lower mortality and illness rate and are more productive than floor-raised birds.

The Animal Rights Front, the anti-hunting group, also takes photographs of hunters registering their dead deer at state check stations. ''They tend to be swaggering when they come in with their kill,'' Mr. Manetti said. ''When we start taking pictures, they lose that bluster. I like to think it humiliates them a little.''

Gary Bennett of Huntington, who was confronted last week by protesters at his deer stand in Yale Forest, questioned the demonstrators' tactics. He also questioned whether the success of the animal-rights gropus could do more harm than the hunters themselves.

Mr. Bennett said experiments with hunting bans have failed dismally in areas of Arizona and Colorado, where deer overpopulation has stripped the vegetation from the countryside and where large numbers of the animals died from starvation each winter.

''We should learn from their mistakes,'' Mr. Bennett said. ''If you dont' harvest a certain percentage of game animals, it's going to have a detrimental effect on the environment.''

Friend of Animals, the Norwalk animal-rights group, recently issued tips on how to sabotage leghold traps and spoil hunting. Its president, Priscilla Feral, said any means used to protect animals were legitimate.

''We are fighting a war aginst the perverse minds who seek to maim and murder sentient animals in their homes - the parks and public lands that belong to all of us,'' Mrs. Feral said. ''We believe it is our right, and in fact our duty, to protect all animals.''

Photo of Gary Bennett, hunter, with William Manetti, animal rights activist; Priscilla Feral of the Friends of Animals coalition; Julie E. Lewin of the Fund for Animals (NYT;NYT/Steve Miller)